storytellers
by Cookies and Ink
Summary: Ron finds a number of diaries, abandoned on a train and promptly falls in love with a stranger called Harry.


**A/N:** Written for February's Meet Cute Marathon. Other Prompts and challenges are listed below.

Word Count: 1,330

 **storytellers**

 _'We are all born as storytellers. Our inner voice tells the first story we ever hear.'_

 _\- Kamand Kojuri_

Ron dropped into the train seat and stretch his legs out, before frowning as his feet kicked something hard. Shifting and peering underneath the chair in front of him, he frowned as he saw a small box, with elastic bands around it to keep it closed. As soon as he picked it up, Ron realised that it could be something dangerous but then he shrugged and tentatively shook it. It was heavy, but it didn't sound like it was going to explode.

He looked around, wondering just what to do with it. Perhaps he should just toss it onto another seat and leave it… but he had a journey of at least three hours ahead of him and curiosity quickly got the better of him. Carefully removing the elastic bands so as not to get twanged, he opened the lid and was a little disappointed to see a series of books inside, mainly leather-bound notebooks.

Flicking through the pages of one showed quickly that it was a diary. Feeling somewhat guilty, Ron looked around again, wondering if the person it belonged to would just appear. The carriage was empty, most people still in bed at this time in the morning so he slipped a little lower in his seat, found the earliest dated book, got comfortable and turned to the first page.

* * *

 **Monday 15th July 1991**

 _Dear Diary,_

 _Mrs Morrison told us today that our last piece of homework for Year 6 was to keep a diary all this week. She bought especially nice ones for us, instead of just a normal exercise book. Except we're not going to hand it on Friday, the last day of term before the summer holidays, but we're going to keep them to take to secondary school._

 _A lot of the teachers have been talking to us since half term about how different secondary school is going to be. I can't wait because I'll get to be on my own, away from Dudley._

 _Dudley and Piers and all his friends say they're not going to do the diary if it's not going to be marked but I'm bored sitting in the dining hall during lunch. It's raining outside so most people are in the classroom where we get to spend wet break but I don't want to get put in the bin again or have the blackboard dusters banged over my head so I get chalk in my hair._

 _Aunt Petunia hates that when it happens. Which is stupid, because it's Dudley who does it but no one tells him off._

 _No one tells him off for anything!_

 _That's why I can't wait to go to secondary school. Then, if I get blamed for something or told off, it'll be my fault. Being on my own… lots of people are scared about secondary school or talking to each other, making sure they're going to the same ones. I think that Tim and Gary are going to the state school too, like me, but they'll just play football so I can stay away from them._

 _I think I will do this diary homework though. It feels nice talking to someone and getting to write my thoughts down. I don't talk to many people, besides the teachers sometimes but they don't really like me. Mr Stephens said I was 'freaky'. He didn't know I was behind the shelf in the library when he said it to the librarian Miss Burlington, hiding from Dudley. She said I was quiet and thought I might have 'learning difficulties'._

 _I don't really know what that means. I don't find learning difficult but if I do better than Dudley Uncle Vernon locks me in my cupboard and knocks me about so it's better to just not try._

 _Not in secondary school though._

 _I'm going to change._

 _Talk to you soon diary, the dinner ladies are telling me I have to go and play._

 _Harry_

* * *

The three hours passed in what felt like three seconds. Ron read through Harry's first years of secondary school, feeling particularly horrified at the casual mentions of child abuse and neglect. Harry's Aunt and Uncle were monsters and it didn't get any better when he had gone to Stonewall High. He had still been isolated, by his lack of money, by the colour of his skin and how much he loved to learn.

The entries stuttered once Harry hit his teens, which didn't surprise Ron really. In fact, he was more surprised that Harry kept writing at all. It was a mixture of frustration with his home life, a few awful dates with girls and then, when Harry turned fourteen, he found out that his parents were murdered.

Ron read the passages after his sister Ginny had gone to sleep. Sat on her sofa with a knitted blanket wrapped around himself, the early morning hours ticked by rapidly.

Harry had been raised to believe his parents died in a car crash. Instead, he'd learnt after his Aunt had broken down one night, partly thanks to a particularly bad beating from Uncle Vernon, that his parents had been in military intelligence and had died on an operation.

Harry's handwriting had been spiked with rage, words blurred with tears and Ron had found himself shaken, horrified as he kept reading, falling asleep with the diary open in his hands.

It took him six days to read all the diaries.

Harry joined the army at sixteen, desperate to follow in his parent's footsteps and find out more information about their deaths. For several years the diary entries stopped, in fact, Ron had thought that was it and then at the bottom of the box he had found a small notebook, tucked in a corner.

After multiple tours of duty and now in his early 20s, Harry was back in the U.K. and clearly suffering from PTSD. Ron had had tears in his eyes as he's read entries scrawled after nightmares.

That was when Ron realised he was falling in love with Harry. The man he'd gotten to know was dry, sarcastic, intelligent, selfless and queer. Ron reread that passage and smiled with a laugh, and then promptly get a dirty look from the older lady he was sat next to him on the train.

The final entry was the one which Ron kept going over and over.

* * *

 **Friday 18th May 2003**

 _Dear Diary,_

 _I am not going to let this beat me._

 _I've fought my whole life and a part of me is so tired. So, so, fucking tired. I'm tired of the nightmares, I'm tired of the ghosts, I'm tired of people staring at my scars._

 _But I can't give up, not until I have answers. More than that, I don't want to give up because I don't want my life to just be this - fighting and war and nothing else._

 _I want to feel like I've lived. I want to look in the mirror and see someone who's enjoyed their life, is doing things, or at least someone who's trying too. So that's who I'm going to become. That's why I'm moving to Hogsmeade, a village in the middle of fucking nowhere. I'm going to make roots. I'm going to just… try, I guess._

 _And then we'll just see what happens._

 _Harry_

* * *

Ron put the last diary in his coat pocket and the rest in his duffle bag as he stepped off the platform at Hogsmeade station. He had told Ginny where he was going, although not quite why. It was the summer holidays, he had time to investigate and even if Harry was horrified that Ron had read his diaries, even if Ron was walking to get his heart broken, he had to return them to him.

He had to know what Harry looked like.

Ron had to tell him, just how brave and incredible he thought Harry was.

Slinging his bag up onto his shoulder, Ron took a deep breath and started his own adventure.


End file.
